och aye land!

so i'm in scotland. it's mostly a bit rainy. but i've gotten out a bit and seen castles and such. amusing doll photography to follow sometime after i get back (which isn't til saturday). there will probably be a bit of radio silence until then.

i want to live in yarnia

yesterday my flatmate posted this as her facebook status. i think it's great:

{G} had a dream her craft-obsessed flatmate LK woke her up in the middle of the night and dragged her to her room, pushed her into the wardrobe into a world made of wool and announced "We're in Yarnia!" The rest is blurry but I remember the White Witch making us eat knitted turkish delight and waking up choking on a hair.
i kinda wanna make this now:

(the v&a museum is so full of win)

my living situation may not always be perfect, but i do have some pretty awesome flatmates most of the time.

also, i made the most amazingly kickass red velvet cupcakes last night. i shall make them again. nom nom nom

feathers and fireworks and such

finally finally i can show some pictures of my halloween costume! i should still snap some pics of the tail on its own to show how i constructed it, but i'm just happy to have finally gotten my pictures + pictures from the boy to be able to show my creation!



i bought 30 small, 30 medium, and 30 long peacock 'eye' tailfeathers. and 4 plume-y types. 86 feathers went on to the tailpiece, 4 plumes + 1 eye onto the headpiece (a sparkly blue headband from claire's) and i had 3 leftover (i was thinking of making earrings, but it seemed a bit much in the end)


i also made the scot's loch ness monster costume using a hoodie, some tartan pj pants which were cut and sewn into spikes and a tail, as well as some heavy paper for gnarly teeth and, when i couldn't find a pingpong ball to use for eyes, i used tealight covers. it worked out fairly well. he seemed to have fun with it, anyhow!

(all 3 halloween party pics borrowed from the boy, but posted on my flickr page)

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after halloween came bonfire night. my first in the UK! woohoo! not exactly a crafty event, but nox came along and a snapped a fun shot of her in a new hat and sweater i made for her. so i feel like sharing.


she wore the same sweater on friday when i attempted to enjoy rollercoasters and such with the flatmates, but ended up getting my equilibrium so thrown off that i managed to be ill a few times across southern england and headed back to london on my own early in the day. but at least nox looked cute...


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in other news i've been knitting knitting knitting more dollybits for my etsy. continual sweater-making (such good knitting on the tube) and new hats. earflap hats. i've been experimenting with various ways to use felted balls, but i don't know that i like the outcome so much, so they might be without. i want to be able to list a handful, so they'll probably be up mid- to late-week. i'm working all week this week (yay!) so that'll be my de-stressing project of the week, most likely.


i hope to be a bit more frequent about blogging as i was in the summer. i certainly have been being more crafty. lots of plans for getting my scrapbooks back into shape and such. christmastime will be for sewing, i think. many, many plans, that's for sure.

blythe friends, hoorah!

I met new Blythe friends on Saturday. Ladies who I'd just interacted with a small bit online. But who were quite lovely.

(photo credit: ~little pebble~)


We had cupcakes (which, sadly, I learned are premade and just thawed. ew).


We gathered. We chatted. We snapped pics.


It was raining and so we didn't get to do much in the way of photoshoots proper, but hopefully next time.




So that was a lovely weekend. I'm gearing up for our flat's halloween party tomorrow night. I have 94 peacock feathers and have yet to assemble my tail. I've been working hard on The Scot's Loch Ness Monster costume (yes, it's very tongue-in-cheek). (And yes, I am indeed an awesome girlfriend). Hopefully mine will come together ok as well!

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In other news. After a conversation I had tonight with someone I don't know, I feel the need to quote one of my favorite movies: "Vivir con miedo, es como vivir a medias!"

I'm going to go sew now.

about that thing

so, after another comment (which i'm trying, in another window, to reply to in a kind a well-thought-out way), it seems that suddenly me making helmets is upsetting people. the last thing i would want to do is to upset people who i consider friends in the dolly world. so i think i'm gonna just keep 1 or 2 helmets up for a while and put the others on "inactive" for a bit.

i feel like crap. never have been one to be ok with being involved in hurtful situations or anything.

a few weeks later...

...and i finally got a day to get pictures of all the things i've been knitting up and tweeting and commenting that i'd be getting on etsy.

i've been saying for weeks i'd put new sparklecats in my shop. but i kept not having sunny days on my days off (and had also run out of buttons for closures). today i had both a day off (half term break!) and sun for nice lighting.

i updated the shop with 11 sparklecats and 6 sweaters. 1 hat sold before i'd finished the update. which was cool. posted one of the below pics in a blythe group and someone commented that they were "a direct copy" of ruth's amazing helmets. that hurt. i know they're similar. i love her helmets. i want handfuls. i never seem to get them (the lovely orange/green/black tartan dress i bought from her came today though. it's *perfect* for scotland!). anyhow. that hurt. i don't intend to copy anyone. i like kitty ears on blythes (and also reindeer antlers - who made those and will they again this year??). i like sparkles. i'll leave fancy bits, baubles, and designs to others more talented than me. now that i'm settled here in london i've been more consistent with my etsy and better about promoting it (and taking consistent photos with a sweet "love, elsie" background). i suppose that's why someone would say something like that now and not before.

blargh.

anyhow. so here are the things i added tonight. i'm hoping that some of you lovely blog readers (all half dozen of you or whatnot) might like a thing or two. it's my hope that selling some of these will help fund my trip to scotland to meet the boy's family and have a little getaway. right now we can only swing the trainfare and not much else. until i get a full time job, i have energy and time to knit (as well as time spent on the tube), so the sweaters and such will keep on coming.

edit: i took down the other pics. most of them in my shop, too. here are the sweaters:



maybe i'll stick to sweaters for now. hopefully that won't piss anyone off.

< /pouty botheredness>

(i'll update on the wonderful london blythe meet we had saturday tomorrow)

tiny needles, fuzzy felt, and figuring it all out.

i've been working on some new felted helmets. playing with my new unspun wool is a bit experiment-y. the estonian stuff i got the other day is super thin and is taking a bit of getting used to. but the finnish kind i got at the ally pally knitting and stitching show is delightful. felts a ton and is tres shrinky.


speaking of the show, i had a great time. i didn't spend too much, but i got a few things i wanted. sock yarn (for dolly sweaters), unspun (for hats) and just did a bit of exploring. i was gifted with some gooorgeous yarn from the owner of buffalo gold: laceweight in buffalo, silk, cashmere and a bit of tencel. so lovely.


after the show, i popped by covent garden to check out the giant bunny. whee! jeff koons' interpretation of his piece for the macy's thanksgiving parade a couple years back and is in london to promote the pop art show at the tate modern. so cute!




in other arty news, i went with the scot and TTWD (oooh...the current boy meets the boy-who-almost-was!) to see "chord" by conrad shawcross. it's an art installation that was described as giant spools weaving across the length of the unused kingsway tram tunnel (near holborn).


in actuality, however, it was really more just giant spools (cool) twisting a rope (not so cool) across part of (uncool) an unsued space (very cool). and the way the rope is being spun, it'll likely all just come unwound the minute the project is done.






still, though. the space was very cool. lots more photos on my flickr.

tonight i'm knit knit knitting and watching "come dine with me" with the flatmates. oh, how i love it.


aaaaand, i've just started a group on flickr for people to show pics of their blythes in my creations! ta da!. (join, dear readers, please do!).